Right over here, Mr. Russert

Here's an interesting back-and-forth exchange between Tim Russert's producer and the watchdog group Media Matters for America (headed by rightie-turned-leftie David Brock) called, "If It's Sunday It Must Be Conservative." She takes issue with the report's conclusion that you're much more likely to see pro-Bush people on "Meet the Press" than other points of view. MMA responds with more charts and graphs.

NBC’s Meet the Press issued a statement today in response to Media Matters for America’s first long-range quantitative study, titled “If It’s Sunday, It’s Conservative.”

 

The following Media Matters items contain more details about the exchange:


If It's Sunday, It's Conservative: An analysis of the Sunday talk show guests on ABC, CBS, and NBC, 1997 – 2005
http://mediamatters.org/items/200602140002

The Sunday morning talk shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC are where policy makers state their case, the conventional wisdom takes shape, and the left and right in American politics debate the pressing issues of the day on equal ground. Both sides have their say and face probing questions. Or so you would think. In fact, as this study reveals, conservative voices significantly outnumber progressive voices on the Sunday talk shows

Meet the Press responds to the report
Betsy Fischer, executive producer of Meet the Press, responds to our report:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200602140009

Media Matters has produced an incomplete and misleading "report" on Sunday morning television. They somehow seek to compare Sunday morning guest appearances for the Bush administration versus the Clinton administration - but for some strange reason they happen to completely omit the first term of President Clinton? Why would they do so - perhaps it's because the statistics from Clinton's first term do not support their ill-defined "conclusion?" (The guest listings for Sunday morning televisiongoing back decades are a matter of public record - and readily available in numerous libraries and databases and from the shows themselves.). In fact, we ran the Meet the Press numbers this morning in a matter of hours and found the following:

- During the first two years of the Clinton Administration - when Democrats controlled both the White House and Congress - the breakdown of ideological guests were as follows: 1993 (72 Democrats, 29 Republicans -or a ratio of (71% Dem to 29% GOP); in 1994 ( 71 Democrats and 47 Republicans - or a ratio of 60% Dem to 40% GOP). When both House of Congress shifted to Republican control in 1995 - the number Republican guest appearances also increased and resulted in almost an even number of Republican and Democratic appearances.

- In summary, for the first term of President Clinton (1993-1996), the ideological breakdown of guests on "Meet the Press" was as follows: 260 Democrats to 208 Republicans - for a ratio of 56% Dem to 44% GOP). How different is that from the first term of President Bush? Well, it's basically the same - according to Media Matters own findings - Republicans accounted for 58% of all guests on Sunday shows in President Bush's first term and Democrats accounted for 42% of appearances).

We'd respectfully request that if Media Matters wants to undertake an unbiased look at Sunday show appearances - they do just that - and include statistics from President Clinton's first term - and avoid comparing apples to oranges. Their study as presented is intellectually dishonest.

Media Matters responds to Meet the Press
http://mediamatters.org/items/200602140010

Summary: Media Matters Senior Fellow Paul Waldman responds to criticism by Meet the Press executive producer Betsy Fischer of our report "If It's Sunday, It's Conservative."

Betsy:

You ask why our report did not discuss Clinton's first term, and you say that "perhaps it's because statistics from Clinton's first term do not support their ill-defined 'conclusion.' " Later, you call our study "intellectually dishonest." You seem to be suggesting that we analyzed the data from those years, decided it didn't fit the point we wanted to make, and thus excluded it from our public report. That would have been appallingly dishonest, and it is frankly offensive for you to suggest that we have done so. I have been asked in a number of interviews why there is an imbalance on the Sunday shows, and I am always careful to say that we ascribe no sinister intentions to the producers. It is unfortunate that you apparently couldn't bring yourself to extend us the same courtesy.

Let me be clear: We didn't examine the guests from those years, so we have no idea what doing so would have showed. We decided to go back only as far as the second Clinton term because there were gaps in the Lexis-Nexis data, and we had to stop somewhere. Gathering and analyzing the data for all the nine years was itself an enormous task. Since you seem to have a complete list of guests on Meet the Press available, if you send it to us, we would be happy to analyze the first Clinton term.

As for the numbers you provide, it is you who have mixed apples and oranges. You say that for the first Clinton term, the guest breakdown was 56 percent Democrats to 44 percent Republicans. Since you are speaking only of Democrats and Republicans, the relevant comparison in our data is not the overall guest list, which includes not only elected and administration officials but all guests, including journalists; the relevant comparison is the list of elected and administration officials. The numbers for Meet the Press during the years we covered are as follows (these can be found in the appendix of the report):

                                                       

 

 

Year	Republicans	Democrats
1997	44.0%	56.0%
1998	47.7%	51.5%
1999	45.7%	51.2%
2000	44.9%	52.3%
2001	65.6%	34.4%
2002	61.8%	38.2%
2003	61.9%	38.1%
2004	54.5%	45.5%
2005	62.7%	37.3%

As you can see, a small Democratic advantage during the second Clinton term became a large Republican advantage during the first Bush term. Overall, we see that Democrats held a 53-percent-to-46-percent advantage on Meet the Press during Clinton's second term (or a difference of 7 percentage points), not very different from the 56-percent-to-44-percent disparity you have cited from your own figures for his first term. But Republicans held a 62-percent-to-38-percent advantage during Bush's first term, a difference of 24 percentage points. This difference was even larger in 2005. Assuming your figures are correct, including Clinton's first term would have only strengthened our conclusions.

In addition, you write of your figure of 56 percent Democrats to 44 percent Republicans during Clinton's first term: "How different is that from the first term of President Bush? Well, it's basically the same -- according to Media Matters' own findings -- Republicans accounted for 58 percent of all guests on Sunday shows in President Bush's first term and Democrats accounted for 42% of appearances." But here you are comparing not just apples to oranges, but Granny Smiths to Clementines. Those figures -- 58 percent Republicans/conservatives to 42 percent Democrats/progressives during Bush's first term -- represent all guests on all shows, not simply Democrats and Republicans on Meet the Press. The figure for Republicans and Democrats on Meet the Press during Bush's first term, to repeat, was 62 percent Republicans to 38 percent Democrats, a difference of 24 percentage points, twice as large as the figure you offered for Meet the Press during Clinton's first term.

I would also like to point your attention to the question of journalist guests. Meet the Press regularly features roundtables made up of neutral reporters and conservative opinion writers without any progressives in sight. To take just one example, on October 30, 2005, your show featured a roundtable of David Broder, Judy Woodruff, William Safire, and David Brooks. I would be eager to learn just how you would consider such a panel "balanced." And this is an area in which Meet the Press actually did quite well during the second Clinton term. But as you can see from this table, progressive writers seem to have almost disappeared during the first Bush term:

                                                                               

Year	Conservatives	Progressives	Neutrals
1997	28.1%	24.7%	47.2%
1998	30.5%	16.2%	53.3%
1999	22.5%	22.5%	55.0%
2000	31.9%	24.6%	43.5%
2001	34.5%	16.4%	49.1%
2002	26.9%	7.7%	65.4%
2003	23.9%	4.5%	71.6%
2004	17.4%	9.3%	73.3%
2005	20.8%	16.7%	62.5%

2005 was a better year for Meet the Press on this score, and I hope that improvement will continue. In total, 28 percent of the journalists and writers appearing on Meet the Press during Clinton's second term were conservatives, while 22 percent were progressives. But in Bush's first term, 24 percent were conservative, and only 9 percent were progressive. In other words, progressive journalists seem to have been shunted aside in favor of neutral reporters. The years 2002 and 2003 were particularly remarkable: In 2002, there were more than three conservative journalists for every progressive journalist on Meet the Press, and in 2003, there were more than five conservative journalists for every progressive journalist.

In short, it appears as though including Clinton's first term would not have undermined our conclusions -- quite the contrary, in fact. I would once again urge you to consider whether Meet the Press is offering the kind of balanced debate that best serves the public interest.

Paul Waldman
Senior Fellow
Media Matters for America